The Effortless Path to Peace
- Duration: Video: 1 hour, 49 minutes, and 43 seconds / Audio: 1 hour, 49 minutes, and 43 seconds
- Recorded on: Jun 20, 2020
- Event: Seven Day 'Retreat at Home' – June
If you wish to be at peace then hold no opinions for or against anyone or anything. To set up what you like against what you dislike is a conditioned habit of the mind. It is a recipe for unhappiness. When we allow things to be as they are, when we allow experience to be as it is, things allow us to be as we are and the peace and happiness that are our nature emerge effortlessly. What is it that separates us out from experience as a separate self or ego? It is the activity of liking and disliking. In other words it is our preferences. See clearly that no effort is required to be one with our experience, one with the current experience. Only an effort is required to resist the current experience. That is why it is said that peace and happiness are our natural state. They do not need to be maintained by effort.
A woman experiences fear arising in response to cockroaches and notices she also feels fear related to illness and death. She asks how to let go of her identity and feel the peace of her true being in the background of her experience.
A woman says when she feels oneness and unity, her ego creates resistance, telling her stories about how she won't be able to function, she's not special and she shouldn't feel good. She asks for guidance in seeing past these stories.
A man says he can release emotions and thoughts as they arise but struggles during difficult situations. He feels these struggles build up and block his knowing of himself as transparent awareness.
A man shares the experience of being aware but without thought for ten minutes. He asks if he was napping or experiencing consciousness without objects.
If you wish to be at peace then hold no opinions for or against anyone or anything. To set up what you like against what you dislike is a conditioned habit of the mind. It is a recipe for unhappiness. When we allow things to be as they are, when we allow experience to be as it is, things allow us to be as we are and the peace and happiness that are our nature emerge effortlessly. What is it that separates us out from experience as a separate self or ego? It is the activity of liking and disliking. In other words it is our preferences. See clearly that no effort is required to be one with our experience, one with the current experience. Only an effort is required to resist the current experience. That is why it is said that peace and happiness are our natural state. They do not need to be maintained by effort.
A woman experiences fear arising in response to cockroaches and notices she also feels fear related to illness and death. She asks how to let go of her identity and feel the peace of her true being in the background of her experience.
A woman says when she feels oneness and unity, her ego creates resistance, telling her stories about how she won't be able to function, she's not special and she shouldn't feel good. She asks for guidance in seeing past these stories.
A man says he can release emotions and thoughts as they arise but struggles during difficult situations. He feels these struggles build up and block his knowing of himself as transparent awareness.
A man shares the experience of being aware but without thought for ten minutes. He asks if he was napping or experiencing consciousness without objects.